Yeah, I'm going to spend a few hundred words here, talking about Garth Brooks' first studio album in 13 years, "Man Against Machine,'' but really all you need to know is ...

He's still got it.

What's funny is that the worst song on this 14-cut CD is the title tune. It's way too Chris Gaines meets Rush meets KISS meets Queen meets AC/DC, an overproduced histrionic mess. But once it was done, Lord, it was as if 9/11, the stock market crash, the recession, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars – all of that just never happened.

Of course, they all did, and we should never forget that. It's just that for 58 minutes, it's nice to escape back to the days when we were all falling in love with country music again.

I do wish we had a little more of the hiccup we self-important critics used to tease Garth about back in the day, although some do show up in the mucho patriotic "All-American Kid.'' The surprise in that song, though, is that Brooks' voice has a depth and power that it NEVER had before. What's more, that virtuosity and range are carried throughout the album.

Ironically, as it's about a younger woman, "She's Tired of Boys'' sounds like the second coming of "That Summer.'' It even includes some of the same guitar riffs. "Cowboys Forever'' has all the angst – and even some of the yodeling – of his cover of "Night Rider's Lament.''

"Rodeo and Juliet'' has a bouncy Texas swing feel that could make any Bob Wills fan settle in, and "Midnight Train" has a nice "Much Too Young (to Feel This Damn Old)" with an oddly appropriate sense of "Shameless." And I love the tent revival feel to "Tacoma.''

And the single "Mom"?' Well, if you listen to that and DON'T go "awww," well, somebody should throw dirt on your grave.

I can guarantee you some are going to say Brooks does the typical Brooks thing and oversings and gives way to theatrics vs. substance. I can also guarantee they are full of what we used to try to avoid in the pastures of my grandparents' cattle ranch in East Texas.

Now comes the best part, at least as far as I'm concerned.

Seems to me that mainstream country music has hit a plateau. That happens – regardless of genre, music is cyclical. Only in this case, the plateau is below sea level.

Mainstream country today seems to be all about dropping tailgates, popping beer tops and ogling hotties in Daisy Dukes and boots.

I'll stipulate that Brooks' old lighter fare, like "Two Pina Coladas,'' "Friends in Low Places'' and "Two of a Kind, Workin' on a Full House,'' while fun, weren't much better. But the reality is that more of his music had the substance of "The Thunder Rolls,'' "The Beaches of Cheyenne,'' "The Dance,'' "The River,'' "What's She's Doing Now,'' "Standing Outside the Fire.'' That's a breadth sorely lacking in much of today's mainstream country.

Until now.

He's still got it, as I said. But even more important, now he's sharing it with us again. Grade: A+.